We started with Poster Boys for Term Limits but then ran into Marcy Kaptur, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and several other obviously qualified females for term limit posters. "Children" fits because, although they are aged in years, their real-world understanding and selfish narcissism is so childlike. They most certainly are not responsible adults.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

A Twofer in South Florida

We’re doing two poster children this time because they’re similar
in many respects --besides having hyphenated names. Both Cuban-American
Republicans, 14-term Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Dist 27) and 7-term Mario Diaz-Balart
(Dist 26) have similar voting records down there with the Dems on the
conservative and libertarian scorecards and that means big spending, taxing and
regulating. We could include Carlos Curbelo (Dist 25) with the other two
except that he is just in his first term but suffice to say that his voting
record is in the range that causes conservative Repubs to call him a RINO
–Republican In Name Only. The three districts are the southernmost
districts in Florida.

IleanaRos-Lehtinen was born in
Cuba and came here when she was seven. She earned a Ph. D. in education from
the University of Miami and then taught and operated a privateschool in Miami. She served in the Fla. House
from 1985 to 1987 and in the Fla. Senate before being elected to the U.S.
Congress when Claude “Red” Pepper died in 1989. Interestingly, she was
succeeded by Mario’s brother, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, in both the Fla. House and
Senate. Lincoln went on to serve in Congress for four terms. The Diaz-Balart
family were all Democrats until about 1985 when they switched to Republican.
Ileana’s husband, Dexter Lehtinen, was a Democrat who served with her in both
the House and Senate –he switched to Repub when they married. You’ll see Dem
characteristics in their voting records.

Mario Diaz-Balart studied political science (what else?) at the University
of South Florida and at age 24 began his political career as an aid to Miami
Mayor Xavier Suarez –that’s when he switched his political affiliation.
He served in the Fla. legislature from 1988 to 2002 with terms in both the
House and the Senate before being elected to the U.S. Congress in 2002
succeeding his brother, Lincoln. It is more complicated than it sounds as there
were district changes involved in all of these tenures. Mario’s (and
Lincoln’s) father was an anti-Castro politician in Cuba; their aunt Mirta was
Fidel Castro’s first wife.

Both Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart opposed ending the Cuban embargo
and objected to the recognition obama is giving the Castro regime. They see it as providing hard currency strengthening
the regime weakened from factors such as losing Venezuela’s support
due to that dictatorship’s failing economy.

Both of these Reps have some good qualities but, on balance, they
have not been helpful in getting government spending, taxing and regulating
down to the point that the economy can be restored and debt brought under
control. I use the various scorecards of reliable free market, conservative and
libertarian groups to judge them. I take my cue from Mathew 7:20
rewording it as “By their votes ye shall know them.” It is
not what they say; it is what they do that affects our daily lives. And
the career pols don’t have to live under the results of their votes as long as
they stay in Washington, D.C. (District of Corruption). So, reelection, to them,
is Job One.

My current favorite scorecard is by conservative Heritage Action –go there to see the individual
votes explained succinctly. That card scores Ros-Lehtinen at 35% and Diaz-Balart
at 39% --the only Repub lower is Curbelo at 27% with the highest rated Florida Dem at 19%. Notably, both favored renewing the
Export-Import Bank to continue corporate welfare to huge companies like Boeing
and GE as well as other vote-buying programs.

The American Conservative Union
(ACU) is the nation’s oldest grassroots conservative organization and their
latest report says that the lowest-ranking Florida Republicans were Mario
Diaz-Balart, David Jolly and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp
observes that, “… the liberals in Congress tend to vote together as a block…The
Left does a great job of enforcing lockstep orthodoxy, to the detriment of the
constituents they represent.” You’ll find a wide spread among Repubs but
a close bunching of Dems on all of the scorecards.

The liberal Americans for Democratic Action selects certain
votes that limit the picture one gets from their ratings. One would expect the
ADA ratings to be the opposite of the conservative ratings but their limited
selective bills to rate upon do not give that result. In fact, both of
our posters got very low ratings. *** click on the name of the organizations
to link to their ratings pages for details.

The non-partisan Club for Growth rates on
economic growth issues and finds Ros-Lehtinen at 40% and Diaz-Balart at 39%
--again, not exactly pro-growth among the lowest ranked Repubs. Without a
growing economy and with continued deficit spending our children are in for a
rough time in the job market. The non-partisan Citizens Against Government Waste calls
Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart “friendly” to taxpayers in 2014 –in between
Taxpayer Hero and Hostile to Taxpayers—not real good and not real bad.
Lukewarm.

There are other ratings that help fill in the
picture but our point here is that we desperately need turnover in congress if
we’re going to get fresh ideas from citizen legislators who run as public
servants and not career pols. The latter make decisions that advance their
careers with
judgments not always
consistent with their oaths of office and rarely consistent with the common
good.
How else could we have the astronomical debt?To help in the cause
please
sign the
petition
for a
congressional
term limits amendment at www.termlimits.org

Caution: don’t think that the three cited
here with low-mediocre ratings are the rule with Cuban-Americans –Sens. Ted
Cruz and Marco Rubio both score close to 100% on
conservative/libertarian scorecards most of the time.

Why "Poster Children for Term Limits?"

Our Founders gave us the Constitutional Republic unique in all of history in that the basic premise was that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights and that to secure these rights our government was instituted deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed. A beautiful concept --no more kings or dictators of any kind --the people would rule in freedom. Small government with limited powers, checks and balances and States rights. It worked fairly well as the USA became the freest, richest country in the world.

What happened? The Professional Politician happened!

Virtually all of the problems of the past hundred years have resulted from the career politician pursuing his/her own goals --reelection became Job#1-- forgetting their oaths of office in favor of their own success in office. We are now paying the price as the Obama-Reid-Pelosi regime moved to control banks, unions, businesses, medicine, media, energy, schools and, of course, government at all levels.

My idea for this blog is to show with real-life examples who is doing this to us and how it is being done. Please point out any errors in my facts or thinking so, in the end, we get this right.

Grandfather

Born 1936 in Cleveland, Ohio, I have been an entrepreneur having founded and run several businesses, served on boards of public and private companies and since 1992 and until recently, a financial planner. I've been a life-long conservative political activist. Sandra, my wife of 54 years, and I have made our home near W. Palm Beach, Fla. since 1973. We have two sons; one is currently president of US Term Limits. We are blessed with four beautiful grandchildren. I am a committeeman on the Republican Executive Committee of Palm Beach County and an active member and contributor to the Heritage Foundation, The Club for Growth and US Term Limits, among other great American free market institutions. The title I now hold that motivates me to continue the fight for liberty -–eternal vigilance is, after all, the price of liberty-- is: Grandfather. I want to do what I can to pass on the freedoms I’ve enjoyed to my posterity –and yours.